Having spent over £100 advertising my new electrcian business (local rag, shop windows, etc) I heard nothing for over 3 weeks
I was beginning to think I'd never get any work and the £6000 course/tools/etc were looking like a waste of money.

Then the phone goes. A job at last. OK its only replacing someone's lights - but its a start.

Down here we stopped advertising in the paper and only advertise in the parish mags - we get LOADS of buisness from them and our customers keep coming back.
Word of mouth is the very best advertising. Whenever we finish a job we give them a couple of cards - one for them, one for a friend.

Down here we stopped advertising in the paper and only advertise in the parish mags - we get LOADS of buisness from them and our customers keep coming back.
Word of mouth is the very best advertising. Whenever we finish a job we give them a couple of cards - one for them, one for a friend.

It's the same with any small business, don't worry about that - you'll spend a lot of money on something and nothing will come in for weeks while you worry about paying it off. You scrape by and then the work starts coming in all at once, in amounts that you can't handle, so despite working all hours you can't keep up and have to turn some of it down. You then invest in something expensive to help you handle the workload more efficiently and that is the trigger for the enquiries to dry up, and after a few days of doing nothing you start to think about the work you'd turned down, wishing some more would come in...

It's worth it in the end, but you need nerves of steel and a little bit of faith.

First of many. Lots of people are using the small one man businesses now as they are more reliable No doubt this is going to be the first of many for you as your skill and expertise gets spread around.

Congratulations. Finding the right place to advertise is one part of it and doing a good job is another. We have given up with our local free journal this year as so much is coming in from our web site. Rather pleased as son did it all.

When we started garden machinery repairs it was very hit and miss (although I got toons of jobs done rounds the house), and then it just mushroomed. Two years ago we were busy from march through till June.
Now, we are busy all year with a couple of weeks just before Christmas when its quiet.
.........and my list of chores and things to do just never gets done.

It's the same with any small business, don't worry about that - you'll spend a lot of money on something and nothing will come in for weeks while you worry about paying it off. You scrape by and then the work starts coming in all at once, in amounts that you can't handle, so despite working all hours you can't keep up and have to turn some of it down. You then invest in something expensive to help you handle the workload more efficiently and that is the trigger for the enquiries to dry up, and after a few days of doing nothing you start to think about the work you'd turned down, wishing some more would come in...

It's worth it in the end, but you need nerves of steel and a little bit of faith.

Sums self employment up precisely. Good luck - well done, the 1st of many